Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Chicago Schools Force Co-ed Hotel Rooms for Trips

The Chicago Public Schools announced its latest Gay Agenda advancement yesterday. Students, faculty, staff, volunteers and adults just visiting schools are free to use any restroom, locker room or shower of their choice regardless of their biological sex. As for school sponsored out-of-town trips, any student from kindergarten to high school may find themselves with opposite-sex students in overnight accommodations.

The move by the third-largest U.S. public school system comes during a national debate over equality, privacy and religious freedom as some states have passed or proposed legislation that supporters of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights say is discriminatory.

"Chicago Public Schools, like much of the country, has become far more aware of the needs and experiences of the transgender community, and it’s crucial for CPS guidelines to reflect our commitment to promoting safe and inclusive schools," Chief Education Officer Janice Jackson said in an emailed statement.

Chicago's new guidelines allow students to participate in school programs including overnight field trips and physical and sexual health classes that correspond to their gender identities and to dress and be addressed in a way that corresponds with their identities.

In 2014, CPS declared that all transgender students in the district must be provided with the same opportunities for physical education, sex ed, sports and all school events as any other student. The district isn’t the first in Illinois to spell out rights for transgender students, but as the largest in the state, its changes certainly will make an impact.

The update, developed with help from the Lurie Children’s Gender and Sex Development Program, Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health and Lambda Legal, spells out that they also must get to use the restroom and locker room of their gender identity. Anyone who identifies as a girl should share hotel rooms on overnight field trips with girls, and the same for kids who identify as boys. And anyone who requests more privacy will be accommodated, including students who are questioning their gender identity.

Similar rules will apply to adults who are transgender or questioning their gender. Adults will have the added protection of not being outed as transgender by co-workers or human resources staffers unless they have given consent.

The new policies, announced Tuesday, provide for the first time clear guidance on restroom, locker room and overnight trip accessibility as well as guidelines for transgender employees and adults at the nation's third largest public school district.

Students and employees within Chicago's school district, which includes 392,000 students and 660 schools, will have access to restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity. The school district also says anyone who wants more privacy—regardless of the reason—will have access to a single-stall when it’s available.

The new guidance replaces a less specific policy that noted use of locker rooms and restrooms would be handled on a case-by-case basis at the school level. It also clarifies, for the first time, that adult employees and volunteers won’t be denied the opportunity to participate in overnight trips due to their transgender status. The district’s policy states that adults, regardless of gender identity, cannot share hotel rooms or other accommodations with children other than their own.

Students who do not identify as [either] male or female, and students who are questioning their gender identity should receive special accommodations, the guidelines state. Students who have "a need or desire for increased privacy" should be provided with "reasonable alternative arrangements" that can include the use of a private area or a single-stall restroom.

Under the updated guidelines, students and employees have a right to be addressed by the "name and pronoun" that corresponds with their gender identity.

Students and employees also won't be required to obtain court orders or gender re-assignment to modify their official records to correspond with their stated identities, and students' requested names and genders will be added to other information contained in a district database.

Roughly the same privacy guidelines apply to students, but CPS staffers are barred from disclosing a student's transgender or gender nonconforming status — including the student's preferred name or gender pronoun — to "other staff members, parents, guardians or third parties" without a student's permission or legal authorization.